2025 Bahrain GP Raceday Preview

Now, it is time for James Punt’s 2025 Bahrain GP Raceday preview. We finally landed a couple of decent winners in qualifying, hopefully we can keep the momentum going this afternoon.

2025 Bahrain GP Raceday

It was a bit of a strange qualifying session. No surprise to see a McLaren on pole, but a big one not to see both on the front row.

Piastri is joined by the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc, who qualified third, but was promoted one place after both Mercedes were demoted a place for entering the pit land early after the red flag. That resulted in Pierre Gasly moving up to fourth place and Antonelli moving down to fifth place.

Lando Norris gets the prize for Dope of the Day, managing to put his McLaren into sixth place. Pathetic really.

Team-by-Team

McLaren 

Piastri didn’t put in a great Q3 lap but was still 0.168 ahead of Russell. The car was capable of being 0.3s – 0.4s ahead of the next best. Norris was just poor, making mistakes and his general pessimism gradually migrated to his driving.

Qualifying is not the car’s strong point and Norris should be able to make up places, but as ever, the dirty air will make that harder than it should be. It should be a fairly straightforward drive for Piastri, and he is the 1.40 favourite.

Tyre degradation will be a big issue in the race, but a McLaren in clean air means Piastri holds all the aces. He can go long on his first stint, use the clean air and control everything from the front. Norris can use the lower tyre degradation to also go long and make up places at the stops.

Of course, McLaren may choose to start on the softs to compensate for their lack of straight line speed. That said, Norris has been so poor this weekend that he could cock it up even further.

Mercedes 

Surprised to be so high up but then demoted for a silly pit lane infringement. Russell has consistently been around top three pace, not just here, but all season. Japan was a disappointing weekend for him, but the car is solid, and the best Mercedes have had in this ground effect era. It will be a good fight between him and Leclerc and I’d fancy Russell to get the better of the Ferrari.

Antonelli was able to work on his pace this weekend and he knows the track already. There was a mistake in his first run in Q3 but he got it all together and starts fifth. The cooler track temperatures under the lights suits them. A podium is there for the taking.

Ferrari 

A bit like McLaren. One driver got it right, Leclerc, and the other was poor, Hamilton. The Ferrari is not great on its tyres, the cooler evening temperatures will help, but the track was still 31 degrees for qualifying last night. That might still be out of their comfort zone.

Hamilton has been off the pace all weekend and that he was out qualified by the Williams of Sainz was a wonderful irony. He is very good at tyre management and that skill may help him recover, to a degree.

Alpine 

Surprise of the weekend. Gasly was nowhere in FP2, but otherwise he has been right there. Doohan getting his best grid position of the season so far underlines that the car is going well here.

Gasly has been flattered by the failures of Norris and Hamilton, and the promotion to fourth after Merecedes’ penalties. Sixth or seventh is a more realistic assessment of where he is. Doohan starts eleventh and it will do his cause no harm if he can finish in the points. He hasn’t impressed me much so far, and he has the Racing Bull of Hadjar behind him.

Red Bull 

I’d almost forgotten about them. From being majestic in Japan, Red Bull, have been right off the pace. Verstappen has been seventh or eighth in all three of his sessions. The car is understeering and that is Kryptonite to him. That the team were not able to find a better setup overnight on Friday says a lot. Usually they find something, but not this weekend.

Tsunoda did well to make Q3 having been really struggling in practice. Verstappen has complained of a lack of grip and problems with the brakes. It is hard to see him making any great progress, maybe a couple of places. Tsunoda is finding driving the car very hard work, He says it takes a lot of concentration and doing that in the heat for an hour and a half will be tough.

Williams 

A good day at the office for Sainz who starts in eighth place. Happier in the car and on a track where he has plenty of miles under his belt in this car. He is still not entirely comfortable and his races have not been great so far. Points are not certain.

Albon finds himself out of position thanks to not getting out of the pits on time for his final run in Q1. The tyres were not at the right temperature and he couldn’t put in his usual run. He was moved up a place, into a Q2 place, but not until the cars were at the Q3 stage. That meant he was denied a chance to run in Q2. He may well have made it four Q3 appearances from four qualifying sessions.

Albon has finished in the points in the first three races, but he hasn’t made up many places in the races, just one place in Australia and one place in China. He would have to make up five places if he is to score points today.

Racing Bulls 

No Hadjar in the top 10, which was a surprise. He felt that he didn’t do a great Q2 lap and left a bit of pace on the table. The car looked like it had the pace for Q3, but Hadjar, and Lawson, are still very inexperienced, so they will slip up from time to time.

The team have not been great at race execution so far. Lawson suffered when his DRS slot closed on the run to the finish line. He had lifted off the throttle slightly and the electronics kicked in a closed it. That cost him time and he failed to get out of Q1. He had been running twelfth and thirteenth in practice and there is more pace in his car than his grid position suggests.

Aston Martin 

Alonso was happy enough with his thirteenth place. That is as good as the car is. He needed to burn through three sets of the softs just to get out of Q1. The team made a mistake with the setup on Stroll’s car. They got the ride height wrong and that produced a lot of understeer. The team were not expecting much from this weekend and say that today will be challenging. They may have the slowest car in the race.

Haas 

My bet for Bearman to make Q3 couldn’t have been more wrong as he could only manage last place in qualifying. He struggled with front locking. The car had shown good pace in FP2 but he just lost confidence in the car in qualifying.

Ocon made it into Q2 but crashed and made quite a mess of the back of his car. It is hard to say what they will do today. The car has decent pace but clearly, it isn’t easy to drive around this track.

Sauber 

Ultimately both cars failed to get out of Q3. Hulkenberg thought he had made Q2 and ran in Q2 but later had his best Q1 time deleted for exceeding track limits and he was demoted to sixteenth. It was all very amateur hour and ultimately, it was Alex Albon who lost out on a chance to run in Q2 and maybe get into Q3.

2025 Bahrain GP Raceday Prospects

After two very boring races in China and especially Japan, we should get a much more interesting race today. Firstly, we don’t have a resurfaced track to confuse the issue. Secondly, we have the prospect of different race strategies. A two-stop strategy is the most likely, but a one stopper is possible. All three tyre compounds are in the mix so there are more realistic race strategies on the menu.

The undercut is also said to be very powerful here, so the timing of stops will be interesting. Overtaking is possible, we have three DRS zones so faster cars should be able to make progress. In short, we should see some racing, just maybe not at the very front.

Minimise Tyre Deg

The McLaren’s race pace is a lot better than its qualifying pace. They can minimise tyre degradation better than anyone else. This is a high degradation track, hence why two stops is the more likely option, but maybe McLaren can use this feature to allow Norris to run a long first stint to make up track position and then have a sprint finish. Piastri should be able to control the race from the front, open up a gap and run deep with lower tyre degradation, especially in the clean air.

One thing to note is that McLaren, running with a lot of wing, are the slowest on the straights. Piastri was the slowest of all, Norris a little faster. There is a fairly long run into the first corner and they do not want to get jumped at the start and then have to run in the dirty air.

Two Stopper

That may mean that they have to start on the soft tyres and do a two stopper. They have new sets of hards and mediums, so all options are open to them. At the end of the day, they have the strongest package, and on a proper racetrack, they should be able to convert that into a race win for Piastri, and maybe a podium for Norris.

Those further down the field may consider a one stopper. These Pirelli tyres have proved to be more durable than many expected. The track is evolving, degradation dropping and in the cooler evening conditions with fuel, burning off, I won’t be surprised to see a few drivers trying a one stop strategy.

Long Run Pace

The McLaren leads the way here, ahead of Mercedes, who in turn look to have as much as 0.2 tenths over Ferrari. Red Bull are harder to read. Their qualifying pace was way worse than the simulations predicted. On Friday, they were predicted to have the second best race pace, but they were also expected to have the second best qualifying pace, and that didn’t happen.

2025 Bahrain GP Raceday Selections

In the midfield there is one driver who looks interesting. Alex Albon was the fastest on the straights, along with Hadjar. They were 2-4 kmh faster that the bulk of the field, but a whopping 8 kmh faster than Piastri. The other straight line slow coaches were Bearman and Tsunoda.

Being slow on the straights is OK if you are fast in the corners, and the McLaren is very quick in the corners. However, if you are running midfield in traffic, being slow on the straights could be a problem.

Albon is out of position thanks to a messy Q1 session. The car has Q3 pace, as we have seen in the first three races, and with Sainz qualifying eighth. He is quick down the straights which should help with overtaking in the DRS zones.

We also know that Albon can look after tyres. He is a regular long stint merchant. The Williams was the quickest midfield team on Friday’s long runs. With this being a racetrack, rather than positional track, Albon looks well set to make progress.

2025 Bahrain GP Raceday Tip: 1 point Alex Albon to finish in the points @ 6.00 with Betfair

George Russell has been very consistent this season and was second in qualifying yesterday on pace. He is 2-1 vs. Leclerc in 2025 and he does look to have the faster car on this track. Unlike Suzuka, the order can and will change here, so starting one place behind the Ferrari is not a big deal.

Russell is 1.91 to finish on the podium, but he can be backed at 2.10 to win Ladbrokes Group 1, where he is matched with Leclerc, Verstappen and Antonelli. With Verstappen struggling this weekend, Russell looks the most likely winner of the group. He is 3-0 vs Antonelli and 2-1 vs. Leclerc. The Mercedes is said to have a couple of tenths over the Ferrari on long run pace this weekend.

2025 Bahrain GP Raceday Tip: 1 point George Russell to win Group 1 @ 2.10 with Ladbrokes

In the other Mercedes, Antonelli is going well this weekend. He is not having to learn the track and after missing out on FP1 with a car problem, he has been top five in every session and starts fifth after his one place demotion.

Verstappen is finding the Red Bull as difficult to drive this weekend as his teammates do everywhere. He hasn’t been better than seventh in any session.

2025 Bahrain GP Raceday Tip: 1 point Kimi Antonelli to beat Max Verstappen @ 2.10 with SpreadEx

The final bet is also a group bet. Alonso remains pointless in 2025 and likely to remain so today. The Aston Martin just isn’t very quick. On long run pace they were quicker only than Sauber and something like 0.3 slower than the Racing Bulls.

Lawson is a little bit out of position and without his DRS problem, would have made it into Q2. The pace of the Haas is harder to call. Fast one minute, slow the next. The long run pace predictions have them a tenth or two down on the Racing Bulls.

Bearman starts last, and Ocon might have to start from the pit lane. His gearbox is likely to have taken a big whack in yesterday’s crash. There is no news yet, but it is a realistic possibility.

2025 Bahrain GP Raceday Tip: 1 point Liam Lawson to win Group 2 @ 4.00 with Ladbrokes

-JamesPunt